the box. He handled it, and they all handled it; and burning their
fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature
prompting each of them the same remedy, against the faces of all the
facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given--to the
surprize of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all
present--without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation
whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty.

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of
the decision; and when the court was dismissed, went privily, and
bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few
days his lordship's town-house was observed to be on fire. The thing
took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fire in every
direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district.
The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter
and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of
architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this
custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my
manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that
the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked
(_burned_, as they call it) without the necessity of consuming a whole
house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron.
Roasting by the string or spit came in a century or two later, I
forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the
manuscript, do the most useful and seemingly the most obvious arts,
make their way among mankind.

Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must
be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as
setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in
favor of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found
in ROAST PIG.

Of all the delicacies in the whole _mundus edibilis_, I will maintain
it to be the most delicate--_princeps obsoniorum_.

IV

THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK[24]

At what precise minute that little airy musician doffs his night gear,
and prepares to tune up his unseasonable matins, we are not
naturalists enough to determine. But for a mere human gentleman--that
has no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to such
preposterous exercise--we take ten, or half after ten (eleven, of
course